Don't make me frog it. You won't like me when I frog it.

The Wedding Bunting

Saturday was one of the joyous and emotional days of my life. Seeing one of my best friends getting married to the love of her life in a beautiful country chapel was just breath taking, and even without my system being awash with pregnancy hormones, I think I still would have bawled my eyes out all day!

It wasn’t all plain sailing in the run up to the big day. They had problems with their first photographer dropping out, the make-up woman taking a different booking for the day despite the deposit my friend had already paid her to secure the date, and the lady who was supposed to run the bar was in a nasty car accident! Luckily it was all sorted out in time for the day, and it was amazing to see how friends and family all chipped in to help the happy couple get their special day.

One of my gifts to them was a short reading for the ceremony that my husband read out on my behalf. Mr BAM has a beautiful voice, and I knew I couldn’t read it without bursting into tears! Actually the bride, the groom and about 90% of the congregation were all crying at one point in the ceremony or other, but they were all happy tears!

My other contribution to the day was the bunting I made to decorate the reception hall. I’ve mentioned it on my blog a few times over the last few months as it was quite a large and time consuming project, but I held off posting any pictures because I wanted to save it for my best friend’s special day. Besides, I figured I could get some lovely pictures of it in situ amidst all the other decorations.

Sadly this didn’t happen.

Decorating the venue was the mother of the bride’s project, and although I never expected the crocheted bunting I made to be the central part of the decorations, I was disappointed to find that out of 15 strings of bunting (with a total of 78 individually crocheted triangles) only one string of 8 triangles was put up in one lonely corner of the reception hall. All the other bunting indoors was shop bought.

I was a bit confused as to where the rest of the bunting was because although I’d seen a couple of pieces tied to the fence out by the car park, the rest was nowhere to be seen. I knew that they’d been pushed for time, trying to get the decorating finished, so I asked the mother of the bride where the rest of the bunting was, offering to put it up on the (undecorated) gazebo on the front lawn. When she told me that all the unused decorations had already been taken back to her house and there was nothing we could do, I was crushed.

With my sunglasses jammed on so no one could see my eyes, I found a quiet corner out of the way and just sobbed. As far as I know the bride and groom were completely oblivious (thank god!) and my wonderful husband sat with me until the mother of the bride found the rest of my bunting tucked away in a cupboard after all. I felt about two inches tall as she apologised and put the rest of my bunting up around the fence by the car park. I don’t know if she’d even heard my earlier suggestion about putting it on the gazebo,but at that point I didn’t trust myself to say anything without drawing more attention to the whole situation.

Now I am aware how self-centred all of this sounds, but being bi-polar means that sometimes strong emotions hit me like a freight train, and when you take into account pregnancy hormones, lack of sleep and an already emotional occasion, I hope you will understand why I found the situation so difficult. In fact the main reason I am putting this in a post now is to help myself to process that excess of strong emotion and move on. I did my best to squash the self-pity on the day, but it still needs to be dealt with, and at least my blog is read by people who understand all the work that went into making that bunting!

I decided to use Stylecraft Special Aran and Attic24’s Granny Triangle Bunting pattern, and my friend chose the colours Lipstick and Parchment, which I thought was particularly appropriate as she loves her lipstick, and the parchment seemed symbolic of the marriage certificate! I made two sizes, some in four rounds of the pattern but the vast majority in six rounds, and steam blocked each one before joining them together in lengths of five with a combination of chain stitch and double crochet.

The “Mr & Mrs” bunting was a lot more time consuming, and unfortunately I can’t find the pattern I used for the basis of the bunting itself. Each triangle started at the bottom point, working in rows of double crochet, increasing one stitch at the beginning of each row. I improvised the scalloped edging, but the letters were based on the Moogly lower case alphabet with a bit of improvisation when they came out a bit wonky! Fortunately I was able to wrangle them a bit more into shape as I sewed them on to the bunting.

I did enjoy making the bunting for my best friend. It was lovely picking out the yarn together, working on it as we sat drinking tea and talking about the upcoming wedding, and I even took the bunting with me to work on at her hen do at the races, which was a bit of a life saver really as I was the only one not drinking.

In the end I need to hang on to the memories and the love that went into making something special for someone I love very much who appreciated the effort I’d put into it, especially when I gave it to her the week before the wedding. Ultimately I’m happy that she was too busy enjoying her special day to notice my little drama!

To be honest, most of my tears that day were very happy ones, and it was a truly beautiful wedding.

Oh it’s lovely, what a shame instructions weren’t relayed to give it pride of place! I made 135m of traditional, double sided bunting for my own wedding two years ago and that took weeks of hard work – I dread to think how long crocheted bunting took! I can only think that the mother of the bride had already decided on the shop bought bunting and didn’t realise the significance of yours and how important it was to the proceedings. Your lucky best friend now has lots of beautiful bunting to hang up in her house though, so you will get to see it in constant use, I hope:)

I was just disappointed that it was just an afterthought to throw it up on the fence at the last minute. I assumed that because the bride had asked me to make it, had chosen the colours and approved the design that her mother would use the bloody stuff! I know the colours fit in with my best friend’s colour scheme at home so she will probably put some up, but there is rather a lot of it!

Oh my heart goes out to you, I’d be crushed if it was me after all that time and effort to crochet it all. Well I’m sure the shop bought bunting is now in the bin so hopefully your bunting will be on display in your friends house. Jean